L.A. Weekly walked off with the highest number of first-place awards at the AltWeekly Awards luncheon June 17 in San Diego. Editor-in-chief Laurie Ochoa took away four little cheerleader trophies, which host Dan Savage selected to recognize the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies' large papers.

The Los Angeles paper won not only for Jonathan Gold's sterling food writing but for outstanding collaborations between designers and writers. It took first place (tying with Miami New Times) in Editorial Layout for "Kids Rock," in Format Buster for "Zeitlist" and in Special Section for "Best of L.A.," which was based on a "seven deadly sins" theme.

Two first-place winners, Ayana Taylor of the Jackson Free Press, and Abraham Mahshie, who was part of a winning reporting team at the San Antonio Current, were diversity fellows at their papers in 2004. Taylor won for News Story -- Short Form, and the Current team for Media Reporting/Criticism. The Current's two-part package on the impact of media monopolies on news quality received a special honor that goes to that category's winner in the small-papers division: the Connye Miller Award for Media Reporting.

In Arts Criticism, the same two writers who took first in 2001 got first places this year: Godfrey Cheshire of Independent Weekly for the small-paper division and Kent Williams of Isthmus for the large-paper division.

A man who has been much in the news, Nigel Jaquiss of Willamette Week, took first place in Investigative Reporting for his stories that changed the way Oregonians regard one of the most powerful figures in state politics, former governor Neil Goldschmidt. Three decades ago, Jaquiss revealed, Goldschmidt committed statutory rape against a 14-year-old babysitter. Willamette Week's expose also won this year's Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting.

Four papers took first in two categories each. The Chicago Reader's Steve Bogira took first for Column for his riveting accounts of what goes on inside the courtroom, and Ben Joravsky tied for first place in the Column -- Political category for his incisive analyses of political maneuvering in Chicago. At the small, feisty Folio Weekly in Jacksonville, Fla., Susan Cooper Eastman won first in Arts Feature for her story on the difficulties encountered by the man responsible for the popular song "Jingle Bell Rock," and Susan Clark Armstrong took first in Investigative Reporting for her look at profligate, questionable spending by a local sheriff. At the Jackson Free Press, where Taylor took first in News Story -- Short Form, Editor-in-Chief Donna Ladd placed first in the Feature Story category for her piece on a family whose three sons claim they were abused by the same priest. Orlando Weekly won in the Cover Design and Format Buster categories.

Illustrator Rick Sealock pulled off the feat of taking first place for Illustration in both the small-paper and large-paper categories, winning for illustrations he did for Reno News & Review and Sacramento News & Review.